We need to let our children grow up to face the world armed with knowledge, with much more knowledge than we ourselves had at their age. It is scary, but the alternative is worse.
Daniel DennettRead
In 50 years - or 20 years, or 200 years - our current epistemic horizon (the Big Bang, roughly) may look as parochial as the horizon Newton had to settle for in his day, but no doubt there will still be good questions whose answers elude us.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The limitations of human understanding persist over time, regardless of advancements in knowledge.
In this quote, Daniel Dennett reflects on the idea that, although our current understanding of the universe, particularly regarding the Big Bang, may seem advanced, it will eventually be viewed as limited. He suggests that just as Newton's understanding was confined by his era's knowledge, our own perspective is similarly constrained, and throughout history, there will always be profound questions that remain unanswered.
Themes
EpistemologyKnowledgeQuestionsUnderstandingScience
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on the progression of scientific thought, this quote serves to illustrate how our understanding is always evolving.
More from Daniel Dennett
All quotes →Philosophers are never quite sure what they are talking about - about what the issues really are - and so often it takes them rather a long time to recognize that someone with a somewhat different approach (or destination, or starting point) is making a contribution.
Daniel DennettRead
Words have a genealogy and it's easier to trace the evolution of a single word than the evolution of a language.
Daniel DennettRead
The secret of happiness is: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.
Daniel DennettRead
Some philosophers can't bear to say simple things, like "Suppose a dog bites a man." They feel obliged instead to say, "Suppose a dog d bites a man m at time t," thereby demonstrating their unshakable commitment to logical rigor, even though they don't go on to manipulate any formulae involving d, m, and t.
Daniel DennettRead
As every scuba diver knows, panic is your worst enemy: when it hits, your mind starts to thrash and you are likely to do something really stupid and self-destructive.
Daniel DennettRead
Similar quotes
Although the life of a person is in a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.
Pope FrancisRead
A truly religious man does not embrace a religion; and he who embraces one has no religion.
Khalil GibranRead
It is necessary to posit something which is necessary of itself, and has no cause of its necessity outside of itself but is the cause of necessity in other things. And all people call this thing God.
Thomas AquinasRead
I wish I might take this for a compliment; but to be so easily seen through I am afraid is pitiful.
Jane AustenRead
Were I asked to focus the New Testament message in three words, my proposal would be ADOPTION THROUGH PROPITIATION, and I do not expect ever to meet a richer or more pregnant summary of the gospel than that.
J. I. PackerRead
Before we tackle the gangs and the basic story, we have to make sure that we have liberated ourselves from how we have been educated and make sure we are coming from a spirituality of our own choosing.
Marshall B. RosenbergRead